David Robinson has provided us with an account of the architecture and archaeology of the Cistercian houses of medieval Wales which is magisterial in content, comprehensive in coverage and handsome in appearance. His work is divided into two parts. The first part, after a brief survey of the background to the Welsh foundations, focuses on their monastic buildings. Pride of place naturally goes to the church itself, and here Robinson's analysis is at its most subtle and insightful, demonstrating how the evolution of these churches was a complex amalgam of Cistercian tradition, itself steadily evolving, the conventions of international Gothic, and regional influences outside the order from Hereford, Worcester and elsewhere. In this context it is particularly valuable that three major rebuilding works should have taken place at Tintern, Neath and Maenan during the later thirteenth century, a time when relatively few such projects were being launched elsewhere in Britain. In his subsequent detailed account of their claustral layout Robinson stresses the characteristic yet, in a broader context, unusual, Cistercian plan adopted by these houses, whether in the construction of a refectory on a north-south axis, the lay brothers' accommodation on the western range, or the placing of the abbatial lodgings to the east of the cloister. It is a picture of conventionality broken in striking fashion only by the remarkable polygonal chapter houses of Margam and Dore. Indeed the impact of the handsome Margam chapter house was such that it not only escaped demolition at the time of the Dissolution but was even integrated into the new house which the monks' successors, the Mansel family, built on the site of the monastery; this then survived virtually unscathed until the last years of the eighteenth century. And by neatly combining the archaeological evidence with the witness of the bards Robinson is able to show how building works continued to be undertaken until almost the eve of the Dissolution.

The second half of the volume, the catalogue, is devoted to a detailed survey of the fourteen individual houses, generously illuminated by excellent photographs and splendidly legible plans. And it is here that the geographical straitjacket, no doubt in part imposed by the volume's sponsors, Cadw, seems narrowingly restrictive, and at odds with Robinson's own ample perspective. It is well known, of course, that a number of the Welsh houses were founded directly from France, by Clairvaux itself, Morimond or L'Aumône, and that these Welsh foundations in turn sent out daughter houses of their own. Equally some were the product of Anglo-Norman patronage, others of Welsh benefactions. Then, again, a number changed their affinities. One of the most rewarding features of Robinson's study is his analysis of this amalgam, his demonstration that these national categories were far from watertight, his elucidation of hybridity. From a historical point of view his subject matter is the ebb and flow of a frontier society. We move rapidly from the simplicities of a Grace Dieu, founded by an Anglo-Norman lord but almost immediately sacked by the Welsh, to the ambiguities of Basingwerk or Margam. Basingwerk was established by one of the very greatest Marcher lords, the earl of Chester, but soon received grants of land from none other than Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. Similarly Margam, which was founded by Robert of Gloucester himself, Henry i's illegitimate son, was soon to receive gifts from a number of Welsh families. This process could be reversed. The small house of Cwmhir was founded by a cousin of Rhys ap Gruffudd but was later in effect ‘refounded’ by Roger Mortimer, and even taken under the protection of both John and Henry iii. No doubt the house's poverty and its border location made it vulnerable to changing local pressures. The position of other houses could also be ambiguous. At Maenan a princely Welsh foundation was physically uprooted by Edward i, who usurped the role of patron, yet the house was later to support the revolt of Glendower – probably at considerable cost to itself. Strata Florida was founded by the Norman constable of Glamorgan, but within a year had been seized by Rhys ap Gruffud and remained resolutely Welsh, again suffering for its support for Glendower. Ironically Tintern, whose ruins have made it the most famous of Welsh Cistercian houses, was essentially an English monastery almost randomly planted by its founder, the Anglo-Norman lord of Chepstow, on the Welsh side of the border. Its estates stretched as far as Norfolk and its daughter house, Kingswood, was in Gloucestershire. The depredations inflicted on Welsh houses by Edward i's invasions can be matched, at least in part, by those of Glendower at Margam and Strata Marcella. Indeed Strata Florida seems at various times to have been the victim of both sides; just as the marriage of the daughter of Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth to Ralph Mortimer might signify an unlikely but symptomatic alliance. Robinson is well aware of these contradictions, but they appear paradoxical only within the crude categorisations of modern administrative divisions.

Robinson also deploys to good effect a wide range of less conventional evidence, particularly that concerning the post-monastic history of these sites. Yet his precisely detailed analysis of these physical remains leaves one longing for some flesh on the bare bones. This study might be seen as a history of religious houses with the religion left out. Yet such a judgement would be unjust. The author's chosen concerns and the nature of his evidence make this impression almost inevitable. At times he does venture into the precincts of these houses as living institutions. The eulogies of the bards – perhaps more self-serving than he readily admits – are brought into play as witnesses to the internal state of various houses, even if usually only to the riches of secular display. So are the complaints, perhaps equally self-serving, of houses which had been the victims of military activity. No less pertinent as physical remains, but perhaps more straightforward in their witness are the surviving books of these houses. In this case mute stones may speak, if only fitfully. Only Dore has left a sizeable library, but there are historical works from Margam, Neath, Valle Crucis and Whitland. And what of the ‘Black Book’ of Basingwerk? In an account so comprehensive, yet in many ways so necessarily fragmentary, could they not have been asked to speak? But such a reflection can in no way detract from Robinson's masterful and elegantly presented revelation of the remains of a group of houses, previously only too often little known or known only individually through the reports of archaeologists and local antiquarians. In all essentials David Robinson has spoken the last word.